NFL News: Browns concerned Trent Richardson could develop stress fracture
June 4, 2013WFNY Stats & Info: Looking at the Indians’ quality starts
June 4, 2013Sports Business Daily is reporting today that the NFL and Verizon have renewed a streaming deal for the next four seasons at a cost to Verizon of about $1 billion. This deal reportedly covers Verizon’s right to stream NFL content including live regular season and playoff games to mobile phones, but not tablets. The previous deal, according to SBD, was for about $50 million annually. There are a few angles here worth discussing, I think.
First, how about the NFL players union and the results of the 2011 lockout? I certainly don’t want to drag that dead horse out for another beating, but when the NFL is renewing media deals for multiples like this, it sure seems that much funnier the kind of posturing they were doing in order to fight over percentage points two years ago. Inflation and interest rates are almost nothing to speak of and here the NFL’s revenue growth – at least in this very specific segment – has quadrupled from one contract to the next.
How will this impact NFL teams and their quest to solve bandwidth issues at stadiums? Despite the fact that there were only just over 27,000 people at FirstEnergy stadium for the United States Men’s soccer game against Belgium last week,1 the phone reception was crippled as per usual. I know they’re planning on addressing wi-fi at FirstEnergy stadium, but if they were planning on making it good to go so people could check fantasy teams, upload pictures to Facebook and the occasional six second Vine video, they’ve got another thing coming when people start streaming NFL action to Verizon phones.
[Related: Browns to address cell service issues]
Will this set up a showdown between Verizon and other Internet service providers? Verizon pays the NFL. Verizon hooks up its customers with this service. The customers are sitting at home on their couch with their smartphones connected to their wi-fi router being fed bandwidth by Time Warner Cable or AT&T, for example. Verizon gets all the credit for the service and yet the streaming of it doesn’t tax their cell towers much at all. In an age of FCC involvement with net neutrality and Congress continually trying to get their arms around the Internet, does this set up a show-down? Maybe. Maybe not, but there’s no doubting that the lines of services and service providers get blurred when devices have more than one way to connect to the Internet.
How does this impact the landscape of NFL video availability? I live in a NFL Sunday Ticket household because my wife is an Indianapolis Colts fan. That used to mean DirecTV for sure and an expensive package of NFL content on top of a pretty hefty monthly bill. I love DirecTV service, but there’s little doubt it isn’t the cheapest option on the market. So, now I have the option to stream games live on my Verizon phone. If I have a Playstation 3 I can buy the Sunday ticket there. I could live on the fringes of society and find a pirate streaming site. (I see some of you trading URLs on Twitter on gameday.)
[Related: Indians’ opening day marred by lack of cell service]
In the end, these are all really good problems to have. I’ve recently taken to saying on the summer movie podcasts with Brian Spaeth that we truly live in the future. CGI in movies has never been less distracting as we watch Iron Man fly or Captain Kirk launch himself off of a cliff into free fall. The same can be said of data and media availability. The fact that I can record a phone call in my house and three minutes later have it uploaded as a podcast for everyone to listen to is incredible. So too is the availability of NFL games for anyone who wants to watch them.
One of the keys for companies to successfully embrace the modern world and the Internet is that they can’t pretend like keeping content away from the people is a viable plan or strategy. The NFL seems to be doing pretty well with this between Sunday Ticket and the Red Zone channel. They’ve also almost figured out the whole NFL network thing that sputtered a bit out of the gates. They’ve got a good thing started. We’ll have to see if they can keep it up.
I know we’ve got a lot of dispersed Browns fans who check out the site. What’s your current plan to catch the Browns when they’re not featured as your local broadcast TV game?
- It looked sold out by the way, because they had the whole upper deck closed and only one club section open for business. [↩]
9 Comments
Money money money….money!!!!
I only get them locally (in MD) a few times a season when they play against their older step brother. My plan is to call Directv and ask them to give me the package for free or i will go to cable. Worked last year. They gave me a second HD DVR box upgrade for free, $30 off a month on programming and NFL package for free.
An option for some is that the Madden 25th aniversary ed (on xbox and PS3) selling this year includes free NFL ticket. Total cost is $99. Check it out on amazon
I’ve never really bothered to try streaming any football on my phone since I’ve had cable/DirecTV and the ticket in the past, but come August the wife and I have decided we’re going to experiment with cutting the cord (Slingbox, Netflix and Apple TV make this very doable).
Being in Columbus I’ll be able to find the Browns and SNF over the air. Does anyone know if Monday night or Thursday night games will be streamed in their entirety? I would gladly pay up to $5 to stream single games that are worth watching. I doubt MNF, but I seem to remember Thursday nights stream the whole thing. iPhone and Apple TV, badabing badaboom….cable TV without cable.
I love my slingbox, but it relies on you partnering up with someone, right? Who is hosting your slingbox for you?
Oh so many jokes could be made….&^%$ it!!!
Does it make me a bad kid if I say the tv in my parents basement? I can’t see them ever cancelling cable (not really tech savvy enough) so I don’t feel like I’m really screwing them over.
If that doesn’t work I’ll probably just end up throwing a few bucks to a buddy who’s wife won’t try cord cutting. I think it’s $7/month to rent an extra box. I’ll offer to get the whole thing set up and he just has to keep the cable and slingbox plugged in.
I have to find it but I have a link where I got all of the browns games not broadcast here in CBus. If I was at home, I’d post it. I’ve only used it for the Browns, but they update their broadcasts every day so I think you can get almost any NFL game. Its not HD but it is better than nothing
As the world’s biggest Browns fan and not living in CLE for more than 30 years, this adds to my dilemma and may have reached tipping point. The ONLY reason I have DirectTV is for the Browns and because of my neighbor’s trees, can only get the games in low def (given our record, that may be a good thing…). I’ll be spending the summer trying to figure out the best delivery system for this year’s games and certainly gives me more options.
Go Browns!
I actually have a dilemma on this – I had DirecTV in New York, but now we’re moving back to Cleveland. (Better job. Really.)
I don’t need to pay for DirecTV anymore, but I don’t want to get expensive cable. I was thinking of going Roku, but then I can’t see local channels. Anybody have a good suggestion so I can see my Browns??